


Redaction

by autiotalo (orphan_account)



Category: Die Ärzte
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-28
Updated: 2010-09-28
Packaged: 2017-10-12 06:25:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/121880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/autiotalo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bela receives a letter from Farin that says more than its appearance suggests.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Redaction

The envelope seemed innocuous enough. Sitting amongst the rest of the post - all demands or requests - it was like a pearl amongst swine. The other envelopes were addressed in the automatic, impersonal font of mass-mailing. This one had his name written across it in black ink, in a neat, careful hand that flicked the upward strokes of certain letters and the final down-strokes of others. The date-stamp was yesterday, but the rest of the postmark was obscured by a droplet of rain and the imprint of a boot.

Bela picked up the envelope and tilted it to one side, as if he could read the contents of the letter without having to open it. The paper was too thick, pale cream and expensive to the touch, and almost before he knew what he was doing, his fingers had slid beneath the flap of the envelope and were tearing it open.

It wasn't the first time that Farin had written him a letter. Farin took inordinate delight in writing letters, particularly on subjects that were either deadly serious or totally idiotic. Why the man couldn't use e-mail, or better still, the telephone, was beyond Bela. He had stopped asking questions like "Why?" a long time ago. The answer was usually too convoluted for him to follow, and accessible only to Farin's peculiar type of logic.

He still had the letter Farin had sent asking him to re-form the group. It was nearly three sides long, full of uncharacteristic exclamations of loneliness balanced with exuberant optimism: a pleading demand to see him again.

Only Farin could word an ultimatum into a seduction and get away with it. But then again, Bela thought, only he was stupid enough to fall for both the seduction and the seducer…

The letter slid easily out of the envelope, and Bela saw with relief – or was it disappointment? – that it was short. He unfolded the paper and began to read, then stopped in astonishment.

"What the fuck…?"

He stuffed both letter and envelope into his pocket. Farin's messages were often bizarre, but this one was downright insulting. Torn between anger, hurt, and a certain distant sense of amusement, Bela grabbed a coat and slouched out of the door, not too fast to hasten the inevitable argument that would follow, but not too slow to delay it, either.

It was only when he was halfway across town that he realised that he'd done exactly what Farin had intended him to do.

***

The amusement had worn off after three stops. By the time the train rolled to a halt for the fourth time, Bela's mood had descended into a waspish anger that made the journey unpleasant for the commuters sitting by him. When he stood up to leave the train, he found that the tails of his coat were trapped beneath a woman clutching a large bag of shopping. Without bothering to excuse himself, Bela heaved at his coat until it – and the woman – slid towards him.

Startled, the woman apologised. Bela sneered in response, and then accidentally trod on a dog as he got off. Just before the train doors snapped shut behind him, he heard the dog's pitiful yap. For a moment he felt bad, but then he decided that it was Farin's fault. That made him feel much better.

Such thoughts accompanied him on the distance from the station to the long, staid building painted the colour of eggnog. The white paint on the balconies was peeling, but overall the place gave the impression of having settled well into its maturity. Bela thought it was ugly and bourgeois, a point he often laboured to little effect. Farin liked it. He even thought the colour was amusing. Bela was certain that Farin put twee little flowers in terracotta pots on his balcony for the express purpose of provoking an argument.

It almost always worked. He could see the flowers now, their ridiculous happy heads bursting from their containers and cascading between the railings on the balcony with scant disregard for the season. It wasn't spring yet: the bastard things should be dead. Bela kicked the door harder than he'd intended, knowing from past experience that it wasn't worth his while to wait for Farin to answer the buzzer. It was easier to trust that the concierge hadn't bothered yet to fix the faulty lock.

The door swung open and Bela climbed the stairs, shoving his hands into his pockets and scowling at the feel of the letter nestled there. He managed to work up enough injured anger to make his knock at Farin's door sound suitably impressive, possibly of Wagnerian standards, and he was rubbing his knuckles against the nap of his coat when Farin let him in.

"I fucking hate that shirt," was Bela's first, involuntary, comment.

Farin glanced down at the garment in question. "About two months ago you said you loved it and could you have one, too," he said. "Hello, Bela."

"I must have been off my head."

"I think you were," came the reply without a trace of irony. "Are you going to scowl at me all day?"

"Why, do I look cute when I scowl or something?"

Farin smiled. "I won't answer that question."

Bela wandered into the apartment, shrugging off his coat and dropping it on the floor. He ignored Farin's long-suffering sigh and lounged from doorjamb to doorjamb, coming to rest looking into the kitchen. It was the antithesis of his own home: neat, shiny, reflective. Bela had never understood Farin's obsession with white; it was another question he dared not ask. Instead, he pulled the letter from his pocket and held it up as Farin brushed past him.

"Okay, so what the hell is this?"

Farin turned just enough for Bela to glimpse an arched eyebrow. "A letter?"

"Don't be fuckin' funny with me. You know what it is."

"Of course I know what it is. Sit down, Bela… Have a cup of tea."

"I don't want any tea."

He sat down anyway. The kettle boiled, and there was the sound of water being poured. Bela sniffed as a mug of a liquid of indistinguishable colour was set before him. It smelled vaguely of rosehips and dandelion and loam.

"What the fuck is this?"

"Tea," Farin said patiently, pulling out a chair opposite and sitting down. "You didn't want any, but I think it's good for you."

"Since when did you care what was good for me," Bela grumbled, warming his palms on the mug, cuddling it between both hands.

"Since, oh, 1981?"

Bela eyed Farin's amused expression and decided not to ask any more rhetorical questions. He picked up the mug and took a wary sip of the tea, then grimaced at the flat, earthy taste.

"What's the problem?"

Bela put down the tea. "The letter. The fucking letter is the problem!"

"It shouldn't make you upset," Farin said, holding out a hand for the envelope. "If it was the tea, then I could understand. It's not very good. I'll make some more."

"Jan!" Bela threw the letter onto the table. "If you haven't got anything to say, then say it to somebody else. Rod, for example. Say nothing to him in fucking Chilean or whatever."

"Spanish," Farin corrected automatically, peering into his mug. "He would probably think I was strange if I went up to him and said nothing in Spanish."

"Then why say nothing to me?" Bela asked.

"You're reading too much into this."

"No, that's just it. I'm not reading anything at all."

The letter lay between them: a single sheet of paper, folded once. At the top, beneath the date, were the words _Dear Bela_. Then there was nothing, not a single drop of ink, until the bottom of the page: _Love, Jan xxx_.

"At first I thought you were being a clever bastard, using lemon juice or invisible ink or something." Bela turned the letter over and indicated a halo of pale yellowish-brown, stigmata from his lighter. "I should have set it on fire and burned the whole thing."

Farin turned the letter again. "But it says everything. I didn't know how to make it any clearer. I still don't."

"What? That you think I'm nothing? That you can't be bothered to talk to me anymore? Fuck. Every time you send me one of your dumb letters I have to wonder what the hell's going on inside your head."

"It made sense when I wrote it." Farin twisted in his chair. "See, it's easy enough to begin with. I write everything down. And then I read it back, and think it's too much…"

Bela rolled his eyes. "So this is reverse psychology, huh?"

"No, idiot. If you'd let me finish…"

Bela made an exaggerated, munificent pass with his mug, the effect spoiled only slightly when tea slopped over the side.

Farin winced at the sound of tea splattering across the tiles of the kitchen floor, but rallied to his theme: "As I said: it gets edited. I take stuff out, and then other things look wrong, and so I get rid of more of it, until there's almost nothing left."

"There's _nothing_ left," Bela said, hurt. "It's like walking into a crowded room and everyone goes quiet, and you know they were talking about you – all that conversation before, then total silence. That's what this says to me. That there's nothing left to say."

Farin gave him a little smile. "Oh, but there is. Redaction takes everything down to the basic essentials. Strips away the crap of social construct and expectation, erases the gloss of ages. This," and he picked up the letter, " _this_ is the perfect letter. The most perfect letter ever."

"Great." Bela looked at the sheet of paper without enthusiasm. "Glad we cleared that one up. What do I do now? Frame it? Meditate with it?"

Farin let it drop to the table again. "I thought you'd like it, that's all."

"You are the most…" Bela searched for an applicable word.

"Infuriating?"

"Stupid," Bela countered. "Insane. Crazy. And yeah, infuriating. You're the most lunatic man I've ever known."

"Read it again," Farin said, folding his hands beneath his chin and leaning across the table.

Bela gave him an uncertain look and then did as he was told, holding the letter close as if the scattering of words were about to slide off and make their escape.

"To me, from you. That's deep."

Farin sighed and got up. "Read it properly."

With a shrug, Bela set the letter aside and mewled a negative at Farin when he tried to remove the mug. The letter stared at him blankly, daring him to try again. Bela took another mouthful of tea and stared back.

He'd always thought it was kind of sweet whenever Farin signed himself as Jan. It reminded him of a time when things were less certain, when every meal was reconstituted mashed potato, when the rent was always late and Farin would come home with the heavy, rich scent of chocolate caught in his clothes. Even after he'd stood shivering under the shower, Farin would still smell of chocolate: tempting and forbidden.

Bela coughed as some of the tea went down the wrong way. The trouble with reminiscing was that it made him into a sentimental old fart. He liked the fact that, back then, it had been just him and Farin. Even that prick Sahnie hadn't been able to get in the way, try as he might…

Understanding came so suddenly that later, Bela wondered if he'd been thunderstruck. He abandoned the mug of tea so quickly that it nearly crashed to the floor, and then he grabbed the letter.

Farin had been right: it was all there, in black and white. Between the two of them, there was nothing – nothing in the way, no divide, just a space waiting to be crossed, virgin territory.

"Shit!"

It was said with so much surprise that Farin turned around from the sink. Water and soapsuds rained down to drip onto the tiles, but he hardly noticed. "What is it?"

Bela stumbled out of his chair and edged away, holding the letter at arm's length as if it were a scorpion. When he had his back to the refrigerator, he waved the letter and laughed, saying, "It's okay – I just thought – well, I thought you told me that you loved me. But that's just crazy."

And to prove it, he crumpled the letter into a ball and tossed it at the table. It bounced from the surface and fell to the floor at Farin's feet.

They both looked at it, unsure as to what it suddenly represented. Bela realised that Farin's expression was stricken as he stared at the discarded letter.

"I do love you," Farin said, his voice very small.

Horrified at what he'd done, Bela took two steps away from the refrigerator. "Oh, fuck. I'm sorry. I didn't mean -"

"Yes, you did. That'll teach me to be a clever bastard. So clever I have to explain my own cleverness, when nobody likes a pretentious twat. Like explaining a joke, yes? It's not funny anymore when you have to do that -"

"Jan…"

"You're right – it was stupid. Burn the letter."

There was a pause: Farin utterly still, white-faced, and Bela wishing desperately that he could undo the last few minutes.

He couldn't, though. No way back. He'd already started to cross the mass of white space between them.

Bela went a little closer, until the toe of his boot touched the letter. "I don't want to burn it," he said gently. "It's… kind of romantic. Stupid, but romantic."

Farin managed to force a smile. "You don't have to pretend."

"What, like you?" The words came out harshly, and Bela watched their impact helplessly, as if from a great distance.

"Just forget it." Farin bent down and retrieved the letter, then closed his hand around it, tight. The paper crumpled and twisted in protest.

"It's stupid," Farin repeated. " _I'm_ stupid."

"No." Bela put a hand on Farin's arm, uncertain as to what he should do next. Of all the available options, he took the riskiest.

"Ah, fuck it," he muttered; and turning Farin towards him, he reached up and kissed him.

For a single, desolate moment, Bela thought that he'd misread again; and then Farin responded. It was nothing like he'd expected. Bela had always imagined Farin's kisses as gentle, polite. The reality was much greedier, and far more exciting.

They lurched across the kitchen, the kiss no longer an invitation but a gatecrasher. Bela fought to regain control of it, his hands lifting to close around Farin's wrists only for his palms to slip on warm, wet skin.

The smell was all wrong, he thought. It should be chocolate, rich and cloying, not the ridiculous, common lemon-fresh scent of washing-up liquid. And the taste – Farin gave him not sweetness but the complicated layers of tea and eagerness and hopeless desire.

Taste. Swallow. It was so unexpected, so heady, that it was cruelty to end it; but Bela did, leaning back heavily against the doorframe. He resisted the temptation to run his tongue over his lips, still afraid of what kind of signal it would send out, but wanting to linger over Farin's taste.

Heads together they stood, their breathing uneven, limbs twisted more in anger than love.

"Fuck," Bela said at last. "God. Fucking hell."

Farin kissed him again, slower this time. Bela slid boneless against the wall, letting his strength follow the distraction of Farin's lips. In fantasy, he'd been the one to take charge. The surrender of will was strangely liberating, but still frightening. So many walls were in danger of falling; walls he never knew he had in place.

Farin's right hand sought the warmth between Bela's legs, fingers brushing the heavy black denim and caressing the long taut muscles of his thighs. Bela muttered his caution against Farin's mouth, wary of those fingers delicately weaving upwards. Sick with want, terrified of what would follow, Bela broke away.

"This is weird. This is you. This is _us_ , and -"

Farin's laughter was ticklish. "And we're weird?"

"Do I need to answer that?"

This time, the chuckle was so soft and intimate that it made him want to roll over and play dead.

"Say it's wonderful. Say yes."

Whatever answer he would have made was buried in another kiss. Bela found himself wanting to touch Farin, the heat of the kiss filling his body with new strength. Without thinking, he ran a hand through Farin's hair, forcing through the tousled spikes until his palm fit neatly to the curve of the skull. That was better, he decided, bringing his other hand up to draw Farin even closer. Now it hinted at possession. The fantasy was his again.

Scarcely had Bela wrested back control when Farin reclaimed it, sent Bela's precarious grip on the situation skittering away. They kissed as if intent on devouring one another, hunter and hunted; kissed until it became painful, jaws aching, faces raw with the scrape of stubble and the slick of saliva cold over their skin

"God," Farin said, breathless, when he broke it. "Felse, is this…?"

Bela nodded, not trusting his mouth with anything more complicated than kissing. Even that occupation seemed beyond him at the moment. He had no idea how many kisses he'd been given during his lifetime, but he was sure as hell that none of them had hurt like this.

"I always thought I was the vampire," he offered jokingly.

Farin giggled, leaning into Bela so that they trembled together, bound by laughter. "Am I stealing your life-force?"

"Life-force, er, yeah, that's…" Bela forgot what he was trying to say as the implications of the double-entendre hit him.

Farin glinted at him. "That surely makes me an incubus."

"But incubuses -"

"Incubi."

"Whatever," Bela growled. "I thought they got their power from fucking."

For a second he felt reassured as Farin gave him a soft smile, and then the safety-net disappeared when he said, "They do."

***

How much time had passed? One minute, two… maybe five. Only now was this seduction moving in a direction that Bela recognised. Usually these things were quite simple: a declaration of intent, a kiss, fumbling around, then off with unwanted clothes and a gallop to the finish.

Farin had to be different, of course. He'd got halfway through step four, removing Bela's shirt, before going back to step three. Bela didn't know whether to be irritated or flattered by the attention. The whole thing was more confusing than arousing, even though his body certainly seemed to be making decisions for him.

Farin's fingers slipped across his skin, lingering on certain colours and symbols inked upon the flesh as if he could read meaning from them. Bela held his breath, almost as mesmerised by Farin's obvious fascination as Farin was with the tattoos.

"What does it feel like?"

The question took him by surprise. Farin's voice was low and sleepy, but the way his fingers moved was enough to convince Bela that he was wide-awake.

"It feels like loads of needles shoved into your skin," Bela said, baffled.

"Not that." Farin winced at the idea of so much pain. "What does it feel like now? Because this," and he moved his hand to touch naked flesh, "feels different to this," and his touch returned to the company of writhing tattoos.

"So different," Farin continued, drowsing. "This is like touching hot silk, but the tattoos – the ink – they're like… like stained glass."

"You do talk shit sometimes, Jan," Bela said, but he was absurdly pleased nonetheless.

"I don't," Farin said. "Here, feel for yourself." He grabbed Bela's wrist and pressed his hand over his left arm. Feeling a little foolish, Bela did as he was told.

"See?" Farin's expression was luminous. "How does it feel?"

Bela concentrated. He'd never thought about it before, save for after the accident when he used to poke and prod and pick at the skin around the mass of burns. The flesh there was not pretty, and nearly all of the tattoos had burned away. His left arm was still whole and perfect, almost entirely painted, and so he let Farin guide his fingers in a tracery of a caress, over and around.

"It does feel different," he acknowledged.

"Bet it tastes different, too."

Farin leaned in and took a mouthful of Bela's neck, his teeth nipping playfully at bare skin, and then he nuzzled his way downward.

Bela tilted his head in tacit submission, closing his eyes as he felt the warm lick of Farin's tongue move across his skin. He could feel the thump of his pulse at his throat, the tiny prickle of sweat heating his body. Behind him, the refrigerator hummed and broke its rhythm, falling into silence. The only sound was that of Farin's lips on his skin: slow, drugged kisses that began to stretch his patience.

Bela knew precisely which tattoos Farin lingered over. The thought of him mouthing at the leering image of a skull was unnerving, and so Bela squirmed, trying to pull away. Farin took his wrist to hold him still and continued, tasting the blue pointed star on Bela's inner arm before drifting just a little lower to press a kiss to the soft skin on the inside of his elbow.

Bela jerked away, instantly aroused. Nobody touched him there, not even the tattoo artist who'd worked so hard on his body. It was a place of vulnerability, of nakedness; it was where he could watch his pulse beat, where he could remind himself that he was only flesh and blood. When the doctors had inserted the drip into that place, he'd torn it out and mewled in shock at the ooze of weeping scarlet, resisting every effort by the hospital staff to re-insert the needle.

Nobody touched that place, but now Farin had done so. Bela knew that Farin was aware of how he felt; and now Farin could feel – taste – for himself the consequences of his actions.

Taste changes on the body. Farin knew long before Bela grabbed him that he'd done something wrong… or maybe, at last, he'd done something right. And then he felt himself pawed at, his arms suddenly full of glittering, furious Bela, and he could barely suppress his crow of triumph.

The artful dance of seduction was abandoned. Bela raved incoherent words, half complaint and half guttural, choked desire, as he fought Farin's embrace. Startled and unsure whether Bela wanted to beat him up or fuck him, Farin took a step backwards.

Bela lunged after him, got tangled in his shirt, and then they sprawled inelegantly but entirely satisfactorily upon the polished wooden floor of the hallway. The initial jolt of collapse was followed by a more basic jolt, a sudden knowledge of body against body. Carnality sang loud and swept aside any lingering doubts. They had to - needed to - touch.

Bela fought his way on top of Farin and tore at his shirt, his fingers clawed and scratching like an ill-tempered housecat. Farin fought back, sinking his teeth into Bela's shoulder and then savaging his neck, raising bruises that tasted of vicious, lustful desire. As they twisted together, their flailing attacks became fleeting caresses; and then Bela's uncoordinated writhing found a rhythm.

The heavy denim was constrictive. Bela ground his hips against Farin, grunting in sudden, hungry surprise when Farin dragged him closer, shoving a thigh between his legs and forcing him to ride the long, taut ridge of muscle.

Bela bowed his head, sending his weight through his arms and onto the floor either side of Farin's body. Gasping in shocked, sharp delight, he pushed down onto Farin's thigh even as he raised his knee, making the friction unbearably tight.

His self-control snapped. Bela fell forwards, greedily grabbing for Farin's cock through the fabric of his trousers and jerking him off frantically even as he continued to fuck his thigh. He felt Farin's arms go around him, holding him excruciatingly tight; Bela spat out a mouthful of Farin's torn shirt and bit at his naked chest hard enough to raise the flesh, and then he licked at it, tasting arousal and sex and power. Beneath his tongue he could feel Farin's heartbeat racing, and he mimicked its rhythm, brought them both into perfect beating, pulsing alignment. He felt rather than heard Farin's stifled cry, and felt a curious, pleasing sense of triumph as his fingers encountered hot, damp cloth.

His own release came swiftly after, driven on by the musky scent of semen and sweat that, Bela decided, was quite his favourite smell after chocolate.

Some time later, before lying on the floor became too uncomfortable, Farin asked vaguely, "What would Rod say?"

Bela snorted. "Rod loves it when we compromise. What could be more compromising than this?"

Farin laughed, a tiny soft sound. "Shall we tell him?"

"Why the hell not," Bela said with satisfaction. "You can write him a letter."


End file.
